Jack Mabrey (Robert De Niro), a correctional officer nearing retirement, is assigned the file of Gerald "Stone" Creeson (Edward Norton, in full method madness), a corn-rowed, arsonist whose strategems to secure early release include deploying the seductive charms of his wife, Lucetta (Milla Jovovich). At its heart, Stone is a taut neo-noir, with a flawed protagonist and a classic femme fatale; this is De Niro's meatiest role in years and Jovovich's best performance of her career. Director John Curran (The Painted Veil, We Don't Live Here Anymore) also achingly captures Mabrey's life of quiet desperation, a hollow existence tempered with Bible, booze and a 40-year marriage. But it isn't until Junebug scribe Angus MacLachlan attempts his own rewrite of Equus by tacking on an extended subplot involving Stone's spiritual "awakening"—thanks to a mail-order, New Age faux-faith—that Stone exposes its feet of clay.
ByNeil Morris